


Ipso Facto

by blanchtt



Series: Ignis Aurum Probat [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:56:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7776937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d heard about the incident with Helena and Kira and the car. Not outright from Sarah, but in passing from Felix, once. Alison’s heart aches at the thought of what Sarah must have gone through, and for Kira to have experienced it. But how exactly had such a small girl walked away with almost no injuries?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ipso Facto

 

 

 

She’d heard about the incident with Helena and Kira and the car. Not outright from Sarah, but in passing from Felix, once. Alison’s heart aches at the thought of what Sarah must have gone through, and for Kira to have experienced it. But how exactly had such a small girl walked away with almost no injuries? _Must have been a lucky break,_  Felix had replied with a shrug of his shoulders when she’d pressed gently for details, put through too much to question any sort of good luck on their end.  _We’re due one once or twice, aren’t we?_

And so alone at night, sitting on the living room couch away from Donnie’s snoring, the children sleeping upstairs, Alison wonders. 

She sucks on the tip of her index finger, feeling the shiny burn from the hot glue gun sting at the contact with her saliva, and unlocks her clone phone with a swipe of her thumb, and then locks it again. Nothing. The others are all asleep, or out enjoying their evening. They deserve it, don’t they? One night where they can pretend all this isn’t happening. But she’d burned herself crafting and now she has questions, and she unlocks her phone again, curls further against the end of the couch (her on-again, off-again bed, pending a possible divorce), and brings up her contacts, wondering whether leaving Cosima a voicemail is wise.

Over the course of her life she’s noticed things - little quirks she’d hid for fear of looking abnormal. A deep, deep bruise on her thigh from when Oscar had aimed too high and whacked her accidentally with his hockey stick when she’d practiced with him, gone in two days. A slice from one of the sharper kitchen knives over dinner, healed the next morning. A sprained wrist from yoga, still as strong as ever despite the science behind the injury. Nothing she’d learned over the course of her studies had been able to explain that. 

It isn’t wise to leave a voicemail, Alison decides, and locks her phone again, sets it next to her on the couch, pops her finger out of her mouth, and reaches toward the coffeetable for her wineglass. Whatever questions she has can wait until she sees Cosima in person. Even over the phone, Donnie might hear. 

 _You’re paranoid, you know?_  Sarah had said once, and looked at her as if she were crazy. She’d kept her mouth shut, lips a tight line the way her mother had always told her not to do, and wanted to tell her  _That’s just because you haven’t been doing this as long as the rest of us._  If Sarah didn’t mind people … stealing her blood and … experimenting on her, or whatever it was  _they_  were doing, then she could gladly take Alison’s place in whatever super-secret lab  _they_  were planning on taking them all. 

And so a small thought becomes a large question, one that demands answers from the brightest of them, except that it’s nearly two in the morning and Cosima is likely asleep or occupied. Alison takes a sip, deep in thought, and the sudden chirp of a text message being received nearly startles her into upsetting the glass right onto the couch. Luckily, even though she’s almost jumped right out of her seat, only a few drops slosh onto her pajama pants. 

“Fishsticks,” Alison mutters, setting the wineglass down and grabbing a tissue. She blots and gets most of the liquid, none dripping onto the carpet, but the stain is there. Annoyed with little left to do regarding the pajama pants since it’s too late to start a load of laundry, she picks up her clone phone. 

There, on the screen, is a text. Not unusual. What is distinctly unusual is the sender.  _Unknown_. ‘Alison Hendrix?’ is all it says, short enough to fit into the preview, and then the screen times out, fading to black. 

She feels the blood run cold in her veins, holds the phone like it’s going to burn her and rushes upstairs. 

 

-

 

_Shooting a gun is exactly as satisfying as she thought it’d be. They’re in a field Beth’s brought them to, bundled up against the fall weather, although it’s not as easy as they make it seem on the movies._

_“Yeah. You actually have to aim,” Beth deadpans, and then proceeds to show her how to actually hit a target._

_Alison takes aim at one of the cans Beth’s set up on a fencepost, steadies herself, exhales, and squeezes the trigger. The sound of the discharge is quieted with the earmuffs, but the kickback is physical enough to make up for it. She watches with satisfaction as almost instantly the can is gone, spun off somewhere with the force of the shot._

_She looks sideways, catches Beth watching her approvingly, expression hidden behind her usual tight-lipped demeanor and aviator sunglasses. But she nods, and motions to the earmuffs, and Alison lowers the gun, reaches up to let them hang around her neck so she can hear._

_“Safety,” Beth barks, and Alison corrects that before Beth steps closer, holds a finger to her chin, looks her up and down slow enough that if she were a man Alison would find it insulting. “Can I help you with your stance?” Beth finally asks, and Alison can only stare in surprise. Beth is the professional here - what’s she doing in the middle of nowhere with a gun if not to learn?_

_“Of course.”_

_Beth walks around her, a frown on her face, and finally stops behind her. Alison looks over her shoulder but only sees the clip of Beth’s shoulder, and turns back around as Beth speaks._

_“I’m going to put my hands on your arms, alright?” Beth asks, a question and not a statement, and Alison feels herself nod._

_“Your stance is too wide,” Beth instructs, and there are indeed hands that clasp her shoulders, almost lightly. “You want to keep your feet a little closer together.” Alison follows her directions, sliding her feet closer and tightening her stance, and Beth continues. Hands slide from her shoulders to her arms, grasp her biceps, raising her arms up a notch and along with them the gun she holds in her hands. “A little higher,” Beth says quietly, and Alison is suddenly very aware of how close Beth is to her. She’s not pressed lewdly against her back like some sleezeball at a potluck, but definitely leaning against her. It’s merely a functional sort of closeness, devoid of any sexual context, and it throws into light the difference between Beth and Donnie and Chad and every other man she’s ever met. There’s nothing Beth wants from her except for her to be safe._

_“Good.” Beth’s voice breaks her from her thoughts. “Don’t want you getting knocked on your ass by the recoil,” she says approvingly, the sound of a smile in her words, and Alison nods in agreement as Beth’s hands leave her, as she steps back and asks if she wants to keep practicing._

_She does, and so Alison unlocks the safety, raises the gun, and takes aim at the next can._

-

 

The clone phone spends the rest of the night turned off and locked in her jewelry box, message unanswered. As Alison gets ready the next morning, Donnie already gone to work, she bites her lip as she watches herself it the mirror. No one has their numbers except Cosima, Felix, and Sarah. And Katja, Alison remembers - she still hasn’t been able to delete the contact from her phone. Beth’s, either. 

She plugs in her straightener and supposes that one of them could have given another’s information to someone else, but she banishes the thought as ludicrous immediately. Neither Cosima nor Sarah seem to underestimate what they’re up against, and Felix is discreet. No unknown senders should be messaging her at two in the morning, knowing exactly what her name is and pretending they don’t.

She finishes with her hair, dresses and unlocks her jewelry box, and the message is  still there in her inbox, unopened. She scrolls through her messages, picks up an existing thread, and texts Cosima. She doesn’t expect her to answer right away, and so Alison tucks the phone in the back pocket of her jeans, grabs her coat and heads out the bedroom door. “Gemma! Oscar! Let’s get moving, we don’t want to be late.”

They load into the van, make their way to school, and for once Alison parks on the street rather than driving up to the drop-off. “Goodbye, babies,” she says, unbuckling her seatbelt and twisting in her seat to reach around and hug Gemma with one arm, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Oscar, she has to settle on a passing ruffle of his hair because he’s already halfway out the door. “Have a good day!”

“Bye, mom!” Gemma says, hopping out the door, and Oscar waves before shutting it after her, the two of them heading down the sidewalk towards school. 

Alison takes a deep breath, the car suddenly violently quiet with the children’s absence, and she reaches foward, turns on the radio to whatever the last channel she’d left playing, and reaches into her back pocket as music fills the silence. 

 **Cosima Niehaus:**  Starbucks?  
**Cosima Niehaus:** 11:30?

Alison replies in the affirmative, and so at eleven-fifteen she’s at the agreed upon Starbucks, trying not to look like she’s loitering and probably failing. She’s nabbed them a table in the corner away from any prying eyes and with a clear sight of the door ( _bloody paranoid, she is,_ she hears Sarah laugh) and waits for Cosima. 

Cosima, like Beth, respects her time and is not more than a few minutes late. “Hey, Alison,” Cosima says in greeting as she walks up, grabs the back of the chair and drags the seat out, sitting and letting her purse drop to the floor. “Sorry. Cab driver wouldn’t listen to my directions, even though I told him there aren’t any Starbucks on Main!” She sits back in her chair, and Alison takes the moment of silence to direct the conversation.

“Hello, Cosima.” She smiles nervously, folds her hands in front of herself on the table top. “I just wanted to clear up a few questions,” she admits. She flicks her eyes left and right - no one’s listening, and so she continues. “Some, well …  _sister_  questions.”

Cosima snorts in amusement, grinning. ”We’ve got a million questions and no answers, but shoot.“ She waves a hand at Alison. “What can I do for you?” 

She plays it casual, suddenly wishing she had a coffee to keep her hands busy, although fidgeting is a nasty habit. “Who has our phone numbers?” Alison asks plainly. She knows the answer already, but to hear if from the woman who had suggested the airtight idea in the first place makes last night’s text a simple misunderstanding or something much more disturbing.

“Just us and Felix,” Cosima answers, firm and definitive, and Alison’s heart sinks. “It’s the whole point of the phones.”

“Of course,” she agrees, nodding. And luckily she’s thought of some other things she’s like to ask Cosima, along with the question about her bruises and cuts and scrapes over the years, because she can’t leave now without raising a huge red flag. They spend the next hour talking, about everyday things like Cosima’s online courses she’s started to take in lieu of lectures and about how Oscar and Gemma are doing, and they’ve known each other long enough now for it to feel familial, as if she really is catching up with a sister. 

But she does still have her life to live and chores to do and dinner to make, and so after their second round of coffee Alison smiles, reaches out and clasps Cosima’s hand. “Well, I should be leaving,” she admits, and she lets go, watching Cosima nod before raising the cup to her lips and downing the rest of her coffee. “I’m having dinner with Donnie before he leaves for Vancouver tonight.”

“Yeah, of course.” 

Alison gathers her things, slips on her coat as Cosima follows suit. But what she doesn’t expect as they head out the door and onto the sidewalk is Cosima’s hand on her elbow, holding her back. 

“Alison,” she begins, quietly, and Cosima catches her eye, serious. “I know this stuff is pretty heavy, so if you need someone to talk to, you know you can call me, right?”

She got along best with Beth, and that’s no secret. “I’m fine,” Alison says, probably a bit too quickly and sharply, and so she leans in, wraps her arms around Cosima in a hug as much to keep her from talking as to sincerely give her one, and feels the other woman respond wordlessly. “Thank you, Cosima. Really.”

 

-

 

The unopened text message weighs on her the entire rest of the day, as she heads to the market, as she picks up the kids, as she prepares dinner, as she eats with Donnie and helps him pack, sees him off and waves from the doorway as his car drives off into the dark toward the airport. And it’s only when Oscar and Gemma are fed, bathed, and fast asleep that she allows herself to open the text. 

 **Unknown:** Alison Hendrix?

It’s probably something she should have told Cosima about. Or even Sarah. But she can come back with intel this way, instead of some vague worry about what’s likely just a mis-delivered text. All the rationalization in the world doesn’t stop the black cloud of worry, though. How would a stranger know her name?

Alison swipes open her phone, sitting up straight in anticipation. The bed is wide and empty without Donnie, and quiet, the pillows at her back fluffed to her liking and the sheets tangled around her legs, all to herself.

_Who is this?_

The answer is almost instantaneous. She sees the little blinking ellipses of a message being written pop up before she can even close out the message app. 

 **Unknown:** A friend of a friend. 

Alison feels a surge of annoyance overtake her and grips her phone. They’re going to string her along, then? She’s had enough of lies and secrets. Why is it so difficult for anyone to give her a straight answer?

_Stop texting me or I’m contacting the authorities._

That’s a bluff. There’s no way she’s getting the cops involved, but  _they_  don’t know that. She sees another message being written, though this one takes longer to come through, as if they’re composing as they go, no more script planned. 

 **Unknown:**  I don’t want to scare you. But I have news you want to hear regarding your friend. 

Has Sarah or Felix or Kira gotten into trouble since she last saw Cosima? Kidnapped? Murdered? Alison swallows, typing quickly.

_News about who? Who are you? How did you get this number?_

The message is as quick as the previous ones were, largely because it only answers one of her questions.

 **Unknown:** About Beth. 

Her heart sinks. She can’t go through this again - Sarah told her everything she had asked her to. What else is there to know? There was bottle of pills spilled on Beth’s bathroom countertop and a train. A suicide, plain and straight-forward and brutally simple in its execution. But Alison lets out a whimpering breath, helpless not to, and bites her lip.

_Alright. Tell me._

**Unknown:** Can I come tomorrow at 11?

At that, she snorts. As if she’d give out her address to someone who, for the record, still has not given her his or her name. She might as well go up to a stranger on the street and invite them home for brunch.

_Absolutely not._

**Unknown:** You don’t want to be in public for this. 

Is that a threat? Or is the news so upsetting as to cause some stir if she hears it in public? Alison thinks, wondering exactly how much she wants to know, what else there is to know. But there is always her gun upstairs, locked away, and she texts back with equal parts anxiety and relief. 

_Fine._

 

-

 

_The room is warm now despite the foul weather outside and she’s sure her bangs are slicked with sweat to her forehead in a very attractive manner, all visible because she’s the type of woman who’s not afraid to leave the lights on. But Beth only kisses her, a hand on her cheek, slow and soft as she grinds between her thighs. How they’ve ended up here has not surprised her, but seems to have caught Beth completely off guard. Luckily, she’d found her footing again soon after._

_As Beth’s hand slips between her thighs again, Alison arches into her touch, breaks their kiss and feels Beth redirect her attention her collarbone, head dipping down and teeth grazing skin as she wraps arms loose around her shoulders. “You are nothing what I expected,” she murmurs, breath hitching as Beth enters her, and starts to move with her, pulling Beth closer._

_With the sting of what’s sure to be another hickey fresh on the skin just above her breast, she hears Beth laugh against her. “How so?” she asks, voice throaty and hoarse, and clearly teasing because she slows down, and Alison jerks her hips against her to get her to keep going._

_“Just … everything,” she admits. If it’s flattery Beth wants, she’s glad to give it, no matter how ineloquent, though it coincides nicely with the truth. With no offense intended to Cosima or Katja, it had been a relief to find another clone who wouldn’t cause double-takes if they walked down the street together, someone who didn’t talk quite so loudly or dress quite so flamboyantly. And most importantly, someone who made her feel as if it was possible, at some point, that they would all get through this in one piece. If there was any of them she trusted, even counting herself, it was Beth._

_“Thanks for the compliment,” Beth laughs dryly, sounding more than a little pleased, and Alison reaches up, runs fingers through her hair like she now knows Beth likes and tugs her closer, nipping at her bottom lip to get Beth to pick up the pace._

-

 

She sits downstairs with nothing better to do until eleven, unlocking and locking her phone listlessly until she hears movement at the side door, which is expected and almost welcome. She’d rather whoever-it-is come skulking around in the yard where no one can see them than show up at her doorstep close to midnight and cause a commotion with the neighborhood watch. 

There’s the rap of knuckles against the glass pane, two sharp and clear knocks, one right on the heels of the other, and Alison tries to still the flutter in her chest at the familiar sound. She tosses the clone phone on the couch, reaches for her hip to run her hand reassuringly over the gun tucked into her waistband, and heads for the door. No use prolonging it. She reaches the door in three quick steps, pulls back the curtains, unlocks the door and opens it, jaw set resolutely.

And it is not Beth standing in front of her, because Beth is dead. Beth can’t be here, in Bailey Downs at 11:06 at night, because Beth is dead. And she is not wearing slacks and a blazer and a button up, looking for all the world like she’s just gotten off a shift at work, because Beth is dead. And Beth surely is not staring at her, tired and calm and with a lucidity she hasn’t seen in a long, long time, because Beth is dead. 

It must be another clone, and Alison reaches out, intends to slap her because  _how dare she_  - but not-Beth catches her wrist in a strong grip, and she muscles her way inside with frightening ease, pushing Alison back carefully at the same time that she grabs her free arm.

“Alison,” not-Beth says, graciously quiet, and Alison struggles in her grip, twists furiously, but there’s no getting away as not-Beth backs her towards the wall, traps her between it and her body. “Alison - ”

“How did you get my number?” she spits, and wishes she had a hand free, thinks of the gun she’s got at her hip, tucked between skin and the rolled-up waist of her pajama pants. She yanks again, but not-Beth only holds tighter. “Who are you?” she demands, and not-Beth goes quiet before she gives her an unreadable look. 

“Ali,” not-Beth repeats, softly, tender, and that, that name in not-Beth’s voice coming from not-Beth, is what breaks her, what makes her go limp and cease struggling. She does it so suddenly that she surprises even herself, and feels not-Beth pin her bodily against the wall in surprise as her knees go week, hot tears pricking unshed at her eyes. Oh, she’s so easy, isn’t she? There’s none of Cosima’s resourcefulness or Sarah’s fire.

“Why are you doing this?” Alison asks, voice thick and knowing she sounds like a little girl. Because it is not Beth, and if this is someone’s idea of a joke, to steal her clothing and visit her in the middle of the night, it is the furthest thing from funny. 

Not-Beth lets her slide down the wall carefully, follows until Alison’s sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest and not-Beth kneels in front of her. “If I didn’t know about all the shit that was going on right now, I’d be offended you don’t recognize me,” not-Beth says, and Alison reaches up to wipe away the wet streaks of tears from her cheeks with the palms of her hands, messy. 

“Who are you?” Alison repeats shakily, because if anything can come from this twisted encounter it’s something to tell Sarah and Cosima… if she lives. Maybe this one’s another killer clone. The thought only strikes her now and Alison shrinks back, fully ready to kick out and knock not-Beth onto her back if need be, which would give her time enough to go for her gun. “What do you want?”

And not-Beth leans closer, eyes fairly black in the darkness of the unlit living room. They’ve done their homework because unlike Sarah or Cosima her hair is left sensibly down, a few strands pulled back in a top knot, and not-Beth looks so much like Beth and wears Beth’s perfume, smelling of spicy, smokey wood, and looks at her like Beth used to, like she’s more than just some silly housewife living in Bailey Downs, and so as not-Beth reaches out towards her and tilts her chin up with a single finger Alison only closes her eyes ( _traitor_ , she thinks darkly to herself) and not only lets not-Beth kiss her but meets her halfway. 

There’s no way that someone could know how Beth kissed, is there? But not-Beth kisses exactly like Beth, yet Beth is dead. It hurts because it’s what her body wants, responds to, but not her heart, because no one, not even not-Beth who kisses like Beth, can replace Beth. It is long and lingering and when not-Beth pulls away there’s that confident laugh, short and low, as Alison opens her eyes, realizes she’s swayed forward toward her. 

“Ali,” not-Beth says, and it’s not condescending, no, only amused as she asks, “You need to see my tag number to know it’s me or what?”

People don’t come back from the dead, except maybe Jesus and even to her that has always smacked strongly of a parable rather than an actual event. “Sarah said you were dead,” Alison whispers, and she’s not blaming Sarah. There was a video of the entire thing, or so she’d heard from Art, and an investigation. Beth went under the train. Beth come out from under the train, dead, on a stretcher, and ended up in the morgue. Felix misidentified her as Sarah himself. 

“I don’t remember much about that part,” Beth says dryly, a corner of her mouth turning up in a smile, and Alison lets out a wet laugh, too. Tired of kneeling, Beth shifts, and Alison reaches out, grabs the lapel of her blazer and urges her closer, until Beth sits between her legs. 

Beth’s hand hovers over her knee, asking without asking before Alison nods and she places it down. “It was just like waking up slowly,” she continues. “Except after a massive hangover and someone beating the shit out of you. It hurt like hell the first couple days.” Beth shrugs, bites her lip, the tough face on again, and ends, “But here I am.“

The only thing Alison can think to ask, which Beth likely has no answer to either, is, “How?”

Another silent shrug, and Beth’s thumb begins to slide back and forth against the fabric of her pajama pants, soothing. “Ask Cosima,” she says blankly, clearly as stumped as Alison, and Alison thinks of her bruises and cuts and scrapes and Cosima’s joke about Kira the lizard, and that if Kira came from Sarah and is a lizard, then are they all not, by that fact, also lizards?

“All I know is that Mika saved my ass in the nick of time, otherwise I would have woken up under my headstone,” Beth says with a snort, and Alison swallows against the thought, thanking whoever Mika is. “She found all of our phone numbers, too, so we’ll have to work on that.”

Alison reaches out, slow in case Beth wants to pull away, but Beth doesn’t. Alison’s fingertips trace Beth’s jaw, along up to her temple, and rake gently through her hair, careful not to muss it to much. No fractures. No blood. She’s been gone for almost two months, long enough for her body to knit itself back together. Alison moves lower, runs hands over her neck, shoulders, arms, ribs - nothing out of place, and likely not even a bruise as Beth doesn’t flinch at her touch. For such massive injuries it’s a miracle she’s made it back in one piece, their biology notwithstanding. 

“You going to keep feeling me up in your living room, or you going to wine and dine me first?” Beth says, knowing full well that is  _not_  what she’s doing.

 _It’s Beth it’s Beth it’s Beth,_  her heart sings, as if her body didn’t already know that, and Alison lets out a sharp laugh, grabs Beth by the blazer collar and drags her closer for a messy, grateful kiss.

 

 

 


End file.
